motherboard - which one to get?

[chrysek]

Ok, I have Abit VT7 at this moment and my system is crashing like hell, I am at the point of getting brand new motherboard which might correct this problem.

I need suggestion in terms of which one to get. I would love my MB to have the following things:
- P4, best if I could use my P4 3.0Mhz 800FSB
- I need it to support DDR400
- I would like it to have 4 EIDE ATA133 support and at least two SATA 150 ports. I don't care about raid etc. (must be able to support 250gig HD's)
- Would like it to have 10/100/1000 Ethernet
- it has to have parallel port
- I need at least 5PCI ports and 1 AGP, best if it had more PCI slots.

Sound, well I can have it on my MB or buy PCI card, don't matter.

I found D875PBZLK from Intel and was wondering if anyone is using it, is it stable with SageTV server?

Does anyone have any other suggestions? I don't want to replace my parts I already purchased so that is why I am so specific what I have and what I like to get but I wanted to see your opinion...

My current system is crashing like crazy, I cannot stand it anymore, that is why I need to maybe replace my motherboard with something that will work... but I don't want to spend another $200 for something that might or might not work...

Please advice...

[mwhite]

I'm using the Intel D865PERLL. Very stable using two PVR-250s and the Sonic decoder pack.

YMMV,

-mark

[stanger89]

Originally posted by chrysek
Ok, I have Abit VT7 at this moment and my system is crashing like hell

Ah, VIA, wonderful chipsets huh.

1) Abit IC7-MAX3
-i875 (so there's your chip/ram support)
-Gig-E
-6x SATA (you'd need converters)
-5x PCI
-no Parallel though

2) Abit IS7-G
-i865 (there's your chip/ram support)
-Gig-E
-4x SATA
-2x IDE
-5x PCI
-LPT port

My Abit BE7 (i845PE) has been rock solid, I'm guessing it's the VIA chipset causing you problems.

[jphhughes]

Having had problems with my D865Perll I would say that the hardware configurations is very relevant to problems you are having. For instance mwhite says his D865Perll is very stable with two PVR 250 where as mine running a 250 and 350 still has video out problems, but its not crashing like crazy. In looking at your configuration I would suggest you try running your system without the 350 for a few days . If it still crashes then at least you know its more than the standard 350 issues. I don't think anyone can recommend a specific MB unless they have the identical setup as you.

[chrysek]

THank you so much for your suggestions, yes, I am currently running on two PVR-250's, I did pull my PVR-350 last week but no luck, After resintalling my windows my PC is somewhat more stable although it is still crashing pretty frequently... I figure out if I changed my motherboard to something what is more stable maybe it would work. I did run out of options already so that was the next step I was going to take... Thank you once again for all the suggestions.

Chris

[kny3twalker]

the nforce2 motherboards seem to run quite nicely from what I hear with a pvr 350
maybe you should consider that alternative
and stay away from VIA chipsets

ATI IGP chipset maybe another alternative since they use intel processors and I hear good things about them with pvr 350s as well

[valnar]

For a P4 motherboard with Intel chipset and excellent compatibility, I recommend the Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 Pro-G. It has everything you specified and the excellent TI firewire chip too. Most OEM boards come with VIA's firewire which is slow and buggy.

It's what I'm using for my HTPC.

Robert

[chrysek]

I just did order this motherboard you've specified, lets see if gigabyte will be beter than my abit which I have curently...

thanks for your advice. I will post if I still have problems when I get this motherboard or not. I hope they are related to VIA chipset.

Chris

[chrysek]

Originally posted by valnar
For a P4 motherboard with Intel chipset and excellent compatibility, I recommend the Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 Pro-G. It has everything you specified and the excellent TI firewire chip too. Most OEM boards come with VIA's firewire which is slow and buggy.

It's what I'm using for my HTPC.

Robert

Thank you Robert for your suggestion, I did replace my Abit MB with gigabyte, the exact model you recomended and so far no single crash... I am playing with this system for quite long time this evening and so far its working perfectly well. Lets see if I am not going to have any other problems like video freezes and oudio problems, but at least I eliminated those anyoung crashes and freezes where I cannot do anything except reboot.

Once again Robert, big thank you.

Chris

[valnar]

chrysek, Glad you like the board. It's truly a perfect board for our needs.

You didn't specify, but I assume you reloaded XP from scratch on the new motherboard, right?

BTW, how is XP SP2 working out for you?


-Robert

[Opus4]

Originally posted by valnar
For a P4 motherboard with Intel chipset and excellent compatibility, I recommend the Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000 Pro-G.

I'll have to chime in and say that I liked what was on that board and just built a system with it too, finally retiring my very old system from around 1997-1998. With the mb, I used a P4-2.8c cpu and 1GB RAM. I found a cheap GeForce FX5200 video card that has no fan ( ) and put it all in an ANTEC Solution Series (SLK3700AMB) case. (A day after I bought it for $65, NewEgg put it on "sale" for $69 & now it is back down to $65. ). I'm still using my Xcard.

I created an XP Pro SP2 slipstream install CD. Everything went quite smoothly with this system. Oh wait -- I discoverd that there are massive problems with the very latest verison of ZoneAlarm, causing my systems to crash every several minutes. Once I removed & installed my previous version of ZA, everything worked again.

I thought my old system was quiet, but this is even quieter. (I'm not looking for silence, just low noise.) The 4 fans: cpu (stock), PS, 120mm case back, and 120mm case front are not audible unless the house is silent... something that doesn't happen much around here! I'm very tempted to get that case for my office PC, though I don't know if its noise is coming mostly from the case fans or the 2 cpu fans on the two Athlon 1.2Ghz cpus in it.

One thing I'm curious about... I stressed the cpu for quite a while and got the cpu up to a max of 62 C -- I have no idea whether that is good, bad, or indifferent for a P4 2.8. Anyone know?

After having a few problems getting SageTV to recognize all the old recordings on the new machine, I updated the FAQ entry (last question of the post) for moving recordings to a new PC. SageTV hasn't been running on it for too long yet, so I'll update this if there are problems, but so far it has recorded using both tuners and has played back several shows all w/o any problems.

- Andy

[kny3twalker]

the Prescotts run much hotter than the Northwoods

mine runs under a 100 degrees Fahrenheit

so that sounds about normal for the P4 C version

[Opus4]

Yeah -- I took the advice I had seen to skip the Prescott. At idle, it is in the range of 32 - 35 C, just under 100 F. I just wasn't sure about that max 60-62 C temp. (143 F)

- Andy

[kny3twalker]

my bad
I was thinking that it was a prescott (E)

you're right
thats the 800 Mhz bus
Northwood

forgot

sorry
thats a bit hot

mine never gets over 120

I would try some added cooling if you are worried

maybe a different heatsink for the CPU

[Opus4]

120?? That's only 48 C. Either that 2.4 runs much cooler to begin with, or your cpu heatsink is much better.

- Andy

[insomniac]

Im running a Intel 865PerLL mobo and am very pleased with it.

config:
Windows 2003 ( if I could do it over without much effort, i would prolly try xp)

2 pvr250 rev. 16
1 pvr250 rev. 15
1 Avermedia M179 (rev.16 pretty much)
USBUIRT controlling 2 different Dish Network boxes

cannot get my 2 USB2's to work with win2k for some reason. Have resorted back to a network encoder on my client.

This server also serves as a MediaMVP server, game server, emulation server, webserver, ftp, mail server, kitchen sink..

Solid as a rock. Best sage box that ive built yet (ive built more than I would like to admit

Your mileage may vary....

[SHS]

That odd kny3twalker one think that the Prescott .09 core woukd run cooler where the Northwood .13 core would run hotter are you sure you don't have this backward
Not only that but Northwood only come with SSE2 and Socket 478 where the Prescott come with SSE3 and Socket: LGA 775 and 478

[Opus4]

Just about every review I saw last week seemed to focus on one main question: With the extra heat generated by the Prescott, was it really better than the Northwood? They seemed to suggest that with all its extra heat and questionable performance gains, it was better to stick with a Northwood. While I'm not completely sure of the performance picture, there seemed to be no question that the Prescott runs hotter.

- Andy

[insomniac]

If they jumped the core voltage up (which I am unsure of), this would likely explain why its running hotter instead of cooler w/ smaller transistors.

Originally posted by SHS
That odd kny3twalker one think that the Prescott .09 core woukd run cooler where the Northwood .13 core would run hotter are you sure you don't have this backward
Not only that but Northwood only come with SSE2 and Socket 478 where the Prescott come with SSE3 and Socket: LGA 775 and 478

[stanger89]

Originally posted by SHS
That odd kny3twalker one think that the Prescott .09 core woukd run cooler where the Northwood .13 core would run hotter are you sure you don't have this backward
Not only that but Northwood only come with SSE2 and Socket 478 where the Prescott come with SSE3 and Socket: LGA 775 and 478

My understanding is that the new 90nm process is less efficient than the 130, that it leaks more current.

Further there's the fact that it's got a 30 (or is it 31) stage pipeline compared to the Northwood's 20 so it's less efficient that way too, less Instructions Per Clock.

Of course it's got twice the cache of Northwood, but that doesn't quite make up for the longer pipeline.

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=2026&p=3

http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=494&pid=1845